As we’ve covered before, there are many mobile home parks in Orange County and they are some of the most affordable types of housing we have. Many, however, are situated on land that is valuable and ripe for re-development (we are keeping an eye on the mobile home park on MLK and Taylor called the Tar Heel Mobile Court as the gas station in front of it has recently closed).
Over the last year, we have seen at least two such parks threatened. One, called Homestead, had just eight families residing in it. All of these families have since found other places to reside. Our Orange County Director of Housing and Community Development was instrumental in identifying housing for a number of these families.
Another threatened park, the Lakeview Mobile Home Park on Weaver Dairy Road in Chapel Hill, has had some of the pressure taken off. It is likely that the owner is still interested in selling, but the developer who submitted the most recent concept plan is not expected to come back with another iteration. Recently, the owner has raised rents by $50 on all tenants of Lakeview, however, according to community partners providing support to the residents.
During these discussions last session, the Orange County Board of Commissioners had identified a potential location for displaced mobile home dwellers to re-locate, county property on Millhouse Road near to the Chapel Hill Transit headquarters. This idea has become untenable, unfortunately, because the cost of adding water and sewer was found to be too high.
The Town of Chapel Hill is working on identify parcels too and has been engaging mobile home residents in these plans. At this point, three potential parcels have been identified via a site analysis conducted by town staff to locate town-owned last that is developable. These parcels are adjacent to (1) Jay Street; (2) Bennet Road; and (3) Dogwood Acres Drive (see maps below).
